This weekend, I am having a mini break, which means it’s an opportunity to visit another church. 

I love the church where I am a member and belong, but annual leave is an opportunity to visit other churches and be encouraged by what God is doing elsewhere.

We had originally thought that we would visit one of the churches in Melbourne CBD, but knowing police are overstretched and multiple protests were being organised, we thought it best not to go. Why add to the business? And who knows how long we’d be stuck in the city while protesters blocked intersections around the CBD. 

So we visited Mentone’s daughter church, Regeneration Church in Clayton. It was lovely to catch up with old friends and encouraging to meet around God’s word and see how the church has grown since I last visited. It was a beautiful sight: a room filled with mostly 25-year-olds and representing so many different ethnicities, from all over the world and yet with one voice praising God and enjoying a deep sense of unity in Christ. I said to the pastor afterwards, ‘here [the church] is the answer to all of the friction and suspicion and anger in our community’. 

It’s true, if you want to see a glimpse of what God is doing around the world today, go to your local church. If you wish to have a little taste of what life in eternity will be like,  drop into your local church next Sunday and see where disconnected men and women from all backgrounds, jobs, education, ethnicity are finding joy and peace and love and life together through Jesus Christ. 

Sometimes the music is happening, sometimes it’s out of tune. Sometimes the coffee is proper Melbourne, most of the time it isn’t. Sometimes the kids are noisy; often they are. The building’s architecture may be plain or striking, the preacher a great storyteller or simple words explaining the Scriptures. In these many different settings, from Clayton to Camberwell, from Pakenham to Preston, and from Mentone to Melton, church is like a breath of fresh air compared to the anx and rage filling our streets. 

What a contrast with the clashing protests in Melbourne city today, where protests met with counter-protests, one volume of insult matched with further insult and even assault. Yes, many are probably marching for a myriad reasons, concerns over housing and cost of living, and fear of the unknown. But with the surprise element of boiling water burning you, these protests were already marked with signs of what they were about. When a protest is arranged under the banner, ‘stop mass immigration’, and then days out it’s described as defending ‘white heritage’ and denouncing Chinese and Indians in our country, of course, the march was going to go off the rails. So when a known neo-nazi is given a microphone and addresses the crowd from the steps of Parliament House, to the cheers of people below, what were you expecting to see? 

A few days ago, Victorian Police expressed concerns that to deal with these protests, they were forced to take away resources from their search to apprehend a man who murdered two of their own and seriously wounded another only 5 days ago. Why would we create further strain on our police after the shocking week they have endured? And then, at the protest in Adelaide, a poster appeared, supporting the alleged police murderer.

Melbourne’s new Lord Mayor wants to claim the title of the ‘optimistic city’, but Melbourne is anything but optimistic or happy. Melbourne has turned into the nation’s protest capital, with weekly interruptions by protests and marches, often promoting the most insidious of causes. Our city is experiencing tumultuous divisions and doubts and fears. One solution often produces another misstep and further erodes public confidence and our social cohesion is increasingly tenuous. We are no longer the city we once were. 

Jesus once warned, 

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” (Luke 21)

Tired of bad news? Exhausted by the negativity and fear? There is someone to whom we can turn. I’ve said it before, and I will keep on saying it: there is good news. There is really good news, and it can already be seen and experienced in Melbourne.  There is something beautiful and good and happy taking place across our city where people from all manner of backgrounds are finding not a feeling of optimism but a happy and certain hope. To be sure, it won’t make the newspapers of 6pm news; good news stories don’t sell. But boy, do we need a better story than the ones filling every breaking news. As Jesus explained, what we get to see in our churches is tasted and seen in a million different cities and towns around the world and in a thousand languages and on a billion faces, 

“This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”